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Thursday, 2 April 2015

Creating a new vMotion VMK adapter using the new vMotion IP Stack

One of the new features of vSphere 6.0 is that you can now route vMotion traffic over layer 3 networks. You could accomplish this in previous versions by using static routes on a per host basis but it did require approval from VMware before GSS would officially support this. Now with vSphere 6.0 this is supported out of the box. This is accomplished by giving vMotion it's own IP stack with it's own default gateway. I'm going to quickly show you how to create a new vMotion VMK port that utilizes the new vMotion TCP/IP stack.

First, create your VMK port as you normally would and ensure the option for VMkernel Network Adapter is checked and click Next:

Select the portgroup that you can this VMK adapter to be connected to and click Next:

Click on the TCP/IP stack option and select vMotion and click Next:

Give the VMK adapter an IP address and subnet mask. You'll notice that you don't have the option to enter the default gateway. We need to configure this option on the actual vMotion TCP/IP stack. Click next once you've entered the correct IP information:

Verify your settings and click Next:

Your new VMK adapter is created but you still need to configure the default gateway for the IP stack:

Click TCP/IP configuration, select vMotion and then click the pencil to edit it: